I wasn't insinuating that all cops are like that, I have several friends who are LEO. From what the article reads though, it sounds to me like the cop was a gung ho rookie who happened to be riding down the street and saw what he thought was a dog chasing some kids and decided to be a hero.
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Dog shooting, Opinions?
- Thread starter Laxguy59
- Start date
I wasn't insinuating that all cops are like that, I have several friends who are LEO. From what the article reads though, it sounds to me like the cop was a gung ho rookie who happened to be riding down the street and saw what he thought was a dog chasing some kids and decided to be a hero.
Lol!
IMO---News Media thrive on this crap. Testimony from the 9 year old dog owner will be in his own favor of course because that was his pet. In certain communities LEO's are always the enemy. It's hard to say what happened, but more than likely the 9 year old dog owner wants to be the victum of a brutal attack on his dog by an LEO. I bet the dog owner and family would be willing to take a check from the City of Memphis and forget all about it.
I have to assume the officer in this story did not wake up that morning looking for a dog to shoot. There has to be more to the story.
I'm going to go with the facts as posted above.
1. Officer is informed by a third party that a dog is trying to attack or attacking a child in the area.
2. Officer looks for said dog and child.
3. Officer sees a dog and child or children (possibly matching description given by complainant, we don't know this for sure based on the above)
4. Dog appears to be "chasing" child or children. Dog "lunged" at child. I can only presume from my next point that the officer believed the child was in direct threat of serious physical injury or even death.
5. Officer shoots dog
If this is a correct summary of the above article I don't see an issue. The officer was acting in good faith on the facts he had in front of him. Most likely these events occurred very fast and a judgement call had to be made. In hindsight, it may have been the wrong thing to do. But under the circumstances given at the time of the incident I can see how that happened.
Is anyone suggesting he should have observed and or waited until the dog actually grabbed or bit the child ? I don't see the problem.
Having seen what a dog attack can do to a small child I know I would not wait until the dog actually bit the child and started shaking its head. If the dog looked aggressive to me at that time, and was lunging for the child that is good enough in my opinion to shoot the dog.
Similar scenario or food for thought.
Police officer receives a call of an armed robbery in progress. Officer arrives at local stop and rob - is told by the clerk that some young (white) kid just ran out the back with a gun and money, wearing jeans and unknown color top maybe light brown. Officer checks neighborhood and sees white teenager running in yard wearing jeans and a tan color T shirt. Subject appears to have gun in his hand. Officer approaches subject and gives verbal command to "stop". Teenager turns around looking for who hollered at him, pointing gun towards officer. Officer shoots teen................teenager turns out to be playing with friends and is carrying an air-soft replica gun. Good Shoot, Bad Shoot, Something in between.........................
1. Officer is informed by a third party that a dog is trying to attack or attacking a child in the area.
2. Officer looks for said dog and child.
3. Officer sees a dog and child or children (possibly matching description given by complainant, we don't know this for sure based on the above)
4. Dog appears to be "chasing" child or children. Dog "lunged" at child. I can only presume from my next point that the officer believed the child was in direct threat of serious physical injury or even death.
5. Officer shoots dog
If this is a correct summary of the above article I don't see an issue. The officer was acting in good faith on the facts he had in front of him. Most likely these events occurred very fast and a judgement call had to be made. In hindsight, it may have been the wrong thing to do. But under the circumstances given at the time of the incident I can see how that happened.
Is anyone suggesting he should have observed and or waited until the dog actually grabbed or bit the child ? I don't see the problem.
Having seen what a dog attack can do to a small child I know I would not wait until the dog actually bit the child and started shaking its head. If the dog looked aggressive to me at that time, and was lunging for the child that is good enough in my opinion to shoot the dog.
Similar scenario or food for thought.
Police officer receives a call of an armed robbery in progress. Officer arrives at local stop and rob - is told by the clerk that some young (white) kid just ran out the back with a gun and money, wearing jeans and unknown color top maybe light brown. Officer checks neighborhood and sees white teenager running in yard wearing jeans and a tan color T shirt. Subject appears to have gun in his hand. Officer approaches subject and gives verbal command to "stop". Teenager turns around looking for who hollered at him, pointing gun towards officer. Officer shoots teen................teenager turns out to be playing with friends and is carrying an air-soft replica gun. Good Shoot, Bad Shoot, Something in between.........................
